You might think, as the applicants argued, that being a Canadian citizen means you have the right to vote. But nope.

About 1.4 million Canadians have lived abroad for over five years. One of the three appeal court judges found that voting is a cornerstone of democracy and depriving citizens of this basic right would turn these people into second-class citizens.

But the other two judges ruled that ex-pats contributing to making laws that don't actually effect them "would erode the social contract and undermine the legitimacy of the laws."